Outlander by Diana Gabaldon

Claire Beauchamp steps through standing stones in the Scottish Highlands and is transported from 1945 to 1744. She is caught in the middle of political intrigue leading up to the Jacobite uprising.
 

Outlander is a rich historical romance, the fantastic element of which provides the fish-out-of-water tension to the plot. At 850 pages, it is certainly a commitment to read the book, a challenge I grew to enjoy the further I went on the journey.
 

Thirteen books read in 19 weeks. Not a bad pace. If I want to meet my goal, I'll have to devour a book a day. The contest ends on August 15th. Let's finish our summer reading!

 

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo and The Girl Who Played With Fire by Stieg Larsson

Good mysteries made exotic (for me) with the setting in Sweden. The author's axe on several issues is ground but not terribly distracting. Can't say I'm compelled to read the third book. Many thanks to Nathan for the recommendation.
 

Little Bee by Chris Cleave

This book is like a sad classical symphony, the final movement of which comes in the middle, of the story. However, once that crescendo was reached, it seemed like the musicians threw down their instruments.

Extremely well written with brilliantly evoked voices for the various characters. The ending seemed, to me, a bit off. Worth reading; thanks go to Carol for the suggestion.
 

Twelve books read. $60 for CLiF. Hope your own reading is going well.

Sorry friends. Comments are shut off for a little bit. The website has been getting slammed with splog posts for cheap viagra and personal loans.

I plan to upgrade the challenge/response soon. Not my favorite thing as I have trouble reading some of those "prove you're human" tests. Hmmm, wonder if maybe I'm really a bot myself - have to read some PKD to verify.

[Edit: We'll try something new and see what happens. Note the privacy policy with this service. How do you feel about that? Would you decide not to post, or to post anonymously because of the data storage policy?]